


to a better and brighter future

by Grand_Phoenix



Series: Warcraft Drabbles, Short Stories, and Other Such Things [39]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Branding, Dark, Fridge Horror, Horror, In Media Res, Orwellian undertones, Religious Fanaticism, btw there are bullet trains run on the power of FAITH they're pretty neat, but whether or not it was willingly...well, don't let the whump stop you from admiring draenei ingenuity, that's a story we've yet to hear, this fic rides on the idea that Yrel drank the most Kool-Aid out of everyone in the Lightbound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:09:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grand_Phoenix/pseuds/Grand_Phoenix
Summary: They shall know only the taste of paradise. By love and by fire, they shall be renewed, no matter how long it takes. [Yrel, Grom, and Lantresor, in the dying land of Gorgrond][BfA era, set right after the Mag'har Orc recruitment scenario, Side-Draenor][What-If]
Series: Warcraft Drabbles, Short Stories, and Other Such Things [39]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/971712
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	to a better and brighter future

They are still the pinnacle of orcish survival: strong men in their twilight. One would think the extinction of Draenor’s most fearsome beasts, the dwindling of the magnaron and genesaur, would make the Mag’har softer. Less inclined to bicker and hunt but learn and grow, tend to the land over pumping the forges, heal rather than hurt—preach, not incite. It doesn’t surprise her anymore; the years had not changed them, even after the rioting stopped and they channeled it into a stalemate that had not budged up until the off-worlders arrived and spirited them away. Despite this, they were hardy, stubborn. Not even being forged in Light seems to make much of a difference.

But only for so long.

“I think we’re done here,” she says, and swings her hammer when she comes around. The thick, crystal head smashes into the base of Grommash’s back, and there’s a meaty thump, the telltale snap of bones. He roars, and Gorehowl flies out of his hands, disappearing into the crowd. He falls to his knees and retches.

“Warchief!” Lantresor cries, and struggles harder against the grip the pair of vindicators have on him.

Kaylaan steps forward, arkonite-studded club raised. She holds up a hand, and though he wavers he relents and backs away. Even the ones that are on the ground, wounded and being tended to by healers, watch as their High Exarch lowers her weapon and goes to stand beside Grommash Hellscream, panting, shaking. The skin on his back is already a glaring, hot red.

He peers up at her.

They always give her a look, when she comes for them. Sometimes it’s angry defiance, other times fear, and when they are taken away they would either lash out or break down and weep. But sometimes they don’t put up a fight; sometimes they are silent, motionless. Sometimes they have to be picked up off the ground and made to walk, but most go willingly: no complaints, no tears, no rage.

There are no such things on Grommash’s face.

“Do it,” he says, breathless. “Finish it.”

“No,” she says. “It’s over. It’s time to go home.”

“Home?” Grommash rasps. “ _Home?_ ” He tries to sit up and barely manages to catch himself from collapsing. “There is no home!”

“But this _is_ your home. _Our_ home. And if you just stop fighting and listen to us, we can work together and fix this.”

“The planet is dying! Everything you touch is turning to crystal and glass! Anyone that disagrees with the naaru is being converted against their will. The _naaru_ , Yrel! The very same creatures that _you_ say champion peace and harmony!” He sucks in a breath. “This isn’t peace, Yrel. This is tyranny!”

Yrel sighs. “I have a people to lead, and sometimes—and you know as well as I—there are going to be decisions that are going to be difficult for me to make. The people of Azeroth never reached out to us. Not once; and if they did, we never heard from them. I had no one else to turn to—”

“You had _us_ , you lying bitch!” Lantresor snaps. “We were right there!”

“...I did not know what to do,” she continues in a steady, patient voice. “Yes, we lived in peace, but it was a tenuous one at best. Can you blame us for being a little cautious, after everything you've done?”

“No,” Grom grunts. “No, I cannot. I can never undo what I did to you. But I was led astray! My son—”

“Was a fool, and so were you to believe him so readily. But we forgave you, didn’t we? We forgive even though we do not forget. That is why we decided to live in peace instead of continuing to fight. That is why we strove to restore this world to its former glory. But as you can see, Grommash, it is not enough.” Yrel indicates the land around them: the ground more dry and cracked, the fronds pale and drooping, the sky overcast with shades of green and grey instead of blue and bright. The sun barely breaks through these days. There is not a hint of birdsong in the air, nor the mad cackling of the Laughing Skull Clan, nor the howls from the rylaks from the canyon to the north, that lend credence to the untamed hell of Gorgrond that struck fear in the hearts of the bravest hunter. “So I prayed. I prayed to Khadgar, but he did not answer; and I prayed to Samaara my sister, but she did not answer. I even prayed to Maraad and Prophet Velen, but they did not answer.” She swallows. “Surely you’ve seen me, Grommash? Surely you’ve heard? Of my coming and goings to Auchindoun, and to the ruins of the Dark Portal. I needed someone, _something_ , to tell me what to do—what _we_ could do. I was so close to giving up! But I still kept going, still kept worrying you all, even though a part of me began to believe I would not be answered.

“But I did, Grommash. I _did_ get an answer. The Light Mother heard me, and She came to me from beyond the horrors of the Great Dark, and told me what I was doing wrong. What I should have been doing all this time, and I have never been so glad to have been received and guided by Her Words than I did in that moment. When once I have doubted myself, I do not no longer. I know now what needs to be done.” She smiles at Grommash. “I’m sorry, old friend, but I can’t stand idle anymore. I have to do this.”

“By turning your back on everything the Prophet taught you?! By draining the very life out of Draenor?!”

“We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been so gullible, Grommash,” she says, as though she’s talking to a child. “But it’s not too late to change. What science can’t fix, faith will.”

Grommash stares at her, dumbfounded. Then, he smirks, and begins to laugh, a rumble in his throat. “You’re right,” he says with a click of his tongue. “You’re absolutely right. I should’ve known better. I was a fool.” He smacks his lips. “I _am_ a fool.”

Yrel smiles, releasing the breath that sits like a dead weight on her chest. “It’s alright, Grommash. We all make mistakes. It’s not too late to—”

“But so are you.”

“...What?”

“You heard me. You...are a much bigger fool than I took you for. To think the Prophet saw potential in you…if only he could see you now for what you are: a successor to Sargeras and the Burning Crusade.” Grommash grins hugely, the skin at the corner of his lips crinkling—humorless, mirthless. “How sad.”

An image rises, sudden and unbidden, in her mind: herself, hefting the hammer (Maraad's hammer, with the cracks splintering across the crystal's head from when it fell, after Blackhand struck him) up in both hands, stepping forward, and swinging it with all her might, smashing it across his face, sending teeth and viscera scattering in a spray of gore. He would be lucky to survive such a hit, a Light-damned miracle, and if he did she would swing again, and again, and again, until that look disappeared and the soft, pulpy meat of muscle and the chipped, brittle grit and bone stared up at her in a hollowed rictus of eternal despair. His body would twitch and fall, but his heart would give and his bowels would purge themselves, and perhaps that would be enough to quiet Lantresor and get him to go with her. Perhaps this death would be the last of all the deaths she had ordered and the Lightbound executed without qualm and all the pain and suffering and doubt and fear could finally be put to rest and ease him into the cusp of understanding, of realizing that there is more to life than just fighting and running for his life, that he could finally have his place in the Great Dark Beyond if he would just give himself to the Light and _stop_.

 _Stop this madness,_ a voice tells him.

_It’s not worth it._

_Look at what you’ve done._

_Witness the future you’ve forced upon us._

It sounds like—

She sucks in a breath, bites the inside of one cheek, presses her lips together. A tic begins to jump above her eye. She closes her hand tighter around the hammer's shaft.

Grommash notices, a glance that’s almost ephemeral. She sees it. They all do. None among her move save for him, fighting to stay upright, not to wince—any more than he has to in front of them. Lantresor watches him, face tight and shining with sweat and flecks of blood, breath labored; the draenei behind him stands stock still, one big hand locked on the halfling’s wrists, the other molded to the back of his head. Beside her, Kaylaan makes a low, frustrated sound and flexes his grip on the club.

 _What are you doing?_ _What have you done?_

“Go on,” Grom says, licks his lips. “Do what you came here for. Lok-tar ogar.”

Her jaw clenches.

“High Exarch,” Kaylaan murmurs. “Your order—”

“Get him on the train,” Yrel says. “Both of them.”

He nods. “As you will it, milady. You two! Pick up the Warchief. The rest of you, take the wounded back to base and gather the fallen. The Light Mother will decide what to do with them.”

“No,” Lantresor says, soft and quavering. Then, loudly, fiercely, “NO! No NO! Get away from—get your fucking hands off me! Fucking piece of garn shit, let go! LET! _GO—!_ ”

“That’s it. That’s the last of them,” Kaylaan says to Yrel, turning away just as the halfling is shoved to the ground, face half-buried in dirt, cuffs forced onto his wrists. The men are hauling Grommash to his feet, one pressing his hand to his back and applying the Light to it. Not a word of protest ekes out of him, only a choked grunt as it soothes the skin and softens the muscles underneath. “What do we do now?”

She shrugs. “The same as we have been doing the past several years: restoring the planet to what it once was.”

“Forgive my insolence, madam, but what if it’s impossible? What if it’s too late?”

“It's not too late. We still have time. But should the possibility arise then we will go where the Light Mother wills us, and I pray we are lucky to salvage what we can. After that...we go to the Great Dark Beyond.” Yrel tips her head back, face directed at the sky. “I do not wish to be this cruel, you know. All I want to do is show people the truth and have them put their faith in the naaru. I don’t want to fight the orcs—I don’t want to fight anyone. Ah...but they make it so hard to talk to. They make it so hard for us to unite.”

“They’ve told me that the Light Mother lies,” Kaylaan says. “That She only says what we want to hear so we fall in line with Her.” He scoffs. “Have you ever heard such bold-faced heresy? How quickly the tides would turn, if we were to speak ill of their ancestors.”

“They don’t know any better. That’s why we have to show them it doesn’t have to be like this. We don’t have to keep fighting.”

“They are orcs, my lady. Fighting and killing is in their blood. It is all they know how to do.”

“It’s in our blood as well, Kaylaan. But we are more than the sum of those parts.” She searches for the sun. Try as she might she cannot find it, though what rays pierce through are meager, weak. Although it is there, obscured by eternal overcast. “They’re out there. Somewhere.”

“Madam?”

“The Army of the Light. They’re building as we speak. Searching for us. Perhaps they may even be spreading the good word across the stars.”

“At least they’re free,” Kaylann adds, and doesn’t falter when Yrel gives him a curious glance. “At least they did not suffer, as we have.”

“We will rejoin them, dear Exarch, in due time. By then Draenor’s infection will be cleansed, in Light or by fire, and fulfill that which I have been blessed to have seen.”

She beckons him to follow, and leads him through the dispersing crowd. Most of the medics are finishing healing the wounded at the stations behind Evermorn Hold's barriers, to better assess those injuries the Light is only temporarily holding together at their stations. Row upon row of warframes stand idle, cockpits dark but battle-ready with single-barreled cannons and the hilts of massive, inactive daybreak greatswords protruding beneath lustrous, rune-carved wings. Soldiers, orc and lightforged both, stand at attention as they walk by, uttering prayers and invoking the blessing of ancient guardian kings. All speak in draenei.

The bullet train awaits on the track outside the perimeters. Men and women line the platform, rifles held at rest. A pair stands on the roof of the head car, a man and a woman. The latter is staring down the sight of her barrel, tracking Grommash as the vindicators come to a stop by the doors, the former with his eye on Lantresor. Still fighting, still snarling, dirt staining his white beard and blood running down his face from a gash above his left brow.

Yrel draws in a deep breath, holds it, and lets her eyes fall briefly shut when the sound of a flame cracks whip-like throughout the valley. Lantresor screams, raw and animalistic. When she lets it go, she flicks her gaze over to the lightforged removing his hand from the back of the halfling’s head. She catches a glimpse of an imprint burning gold in hair, little streamers of smoke unfurling as the braid comes undone. Lantresor slumps forward, panting. His lips move, but there are no words; what Yrel can decipher from them is the usual affair every other Mag’har has said in some variation.

The man on the rooftop lowers his weapon, scowling. He goes to stand with his partner to watch Lantresor be dragged up to the open doors.

The light in the old Blade’s eyes is dim, smoldering. His mouth twists, indignant, murderous. Then he’s pushed across the threshold, and it will be the last Yrel will see of him before they meet again in Shattrath City’s Ministry of Higher Learning.

Grommash does not complain, but his gait is languid, nearly dragging, the kind of pace that won’t force his escorts to hurry him along with the subtlety of a saberon. Although the frustration is clear on their faces, the men stop when Grommash does in front of the doorway. His broad chest rises and falls. He runs his tongue over his lips, winces as he straightens his back, dotted in five, small golden fingerprints. Sweat dots his forehead.

“Come on now,” one of them says, tugging lightly on a manacled wrist. “You’ll have plenty of time to rest when you sit down.”

“Don’t you want to see your son again?” the other asks.

Grommash snorts—or maybe sighs, in what is clearly annoyance.

Kaylann motions to stand between them. “High Exarch—”

“Wait,” Yrel says, and pushes Kaylann’s hand away from his club. She walks toward the car, eyes trained on Grommash. The marksmen shift at her approach. Though his face is covered, one guard shoots her an inquiring look. His grip tightens around the Warchief’s arm.

“You should get moving, Grommash,” she says. “There’s nowhere else left to go, and I’d hate for you to keep thinking that. Please don’t be a fool and try. Losing you will hurt your son more than any wound he’s suffered.” When Grommash doesn’t respond, she sighs. “Come on now. Let’s go. The longer you linger, the more out of sorts Lantresor is going to be.”

The guard tugs on his arm, but Grommash doesn’t move. He pulls harder. “The High Exarch gave you an order,” he growls. “ _Move_.”

Grommash sniffs. “Fine. I’ll go. But one last thing, Yrel.” He turns his head around as far as the lack of personal space will allow him, leveling her a stare that smolders beneath his heavy brow. “You had better _hope_ the Alliance and the Horde never get back to you. Because when they do, I can guarantee you that will be the day you’ll see how well and far that precious Light of yours hides your shadows. And if they can’t do it, then ancestors grant me strength because _I will_.”

She holds in his stare, takes in the bloodshot corneas and crow’s feet stretched across dark bags that make it seem sunken, gaunt, haunted. The weathered dryness and crevices lining his face: some from age, some from fighting. If she squints, she can make out the rings on his tusks and the staining on them.

The telltale heat of bile bubbles in the back of her throat.

She bites the inside of her lower lip.

She hears the Light Mother sing, high and beatific in her head, timed to the rhythm of each tick of her pulse, her heartbeat, blood flow. Ringing, ringing, like the tonal vibrations of the Ata’mal enshrined within the heart of Shattrath City, the Ever-Living Flame. _Peace,_ the naaru intones. _Patience._

Yrel bites down harder, tastes the tang of iron on her tongue. She breathes in.

Grommash breaks the standoff and looks away. Forced to move, more like, by the soldiers, and they go through the pair of doors that hiss and lock shut behind them. The snipers lower their guns. The man props open the hatch by his feet and disappears down the shaft, his companion in tow.

From within the train’s underbelly, Light glows. Thrums in the air like a plucked guitar string, tingling up and down her bones with itching, teasing flirtation.

Her lungs ache.

 _Soon,_ the Light Mother chants. _They shall know._

_They shall know._

_They shall know._

“Can you believe the gall of that man?” Kaylaan says with a contemptuous sniff. “He thinks the people of Azeroth will respond to us with force instead of love. The Mag’har are too few. What could they possibly offer to the Horde that isn’t war and death?”

“...Nothing.”

“Madam?”

“They know nothing,” Yrel says, rough and low. “They don’t know anything else but war and death. That’s why they fled from us, Kaylaan. They fled because they fear what they don’t understand...and what they might become if they did. So they find sanctuary among others that can relate with them." She pushes the words past the bile, works them out her mouth with such strain it hurts. "It’s such a vicious cycle. They can’t break it.”

“We will make them, High Exarch” Kaylaan says, not unkindly. "I promise you so."

“Indeed," Yrel says, nodding. "Yes. Indeed we shall. We will make them. The Horde failed twice; they will fail again, when their petty war is all said and accounted for. It’s just the way of things, and it will stay that way unless something is done.” The train begins to pull away—dragging at first, then gaining momentum, and finally trundling down the track. Warm air dissipates, grows cold. Her bones are void of that lover’s silk touch.

(No, not quite. Her song still resonates in her mind, fills her veins with the fire that can never go out, tattooed eternity with the promise of a better tomorrow, a universe united and enraptured with such rich, pure warmth they refused to let embrace them.

His mark is still on her brow, still shows when she introduces the daily sermons at Shattrath City and at Auchindoun, when she incites the Lightbound into the thick of battle when their pleas fall to the wayside. When she communes with the Light Mother, mantles Her in those brief moments of solitude removed from the paperwork, the conferences, the observations at the Ministries. Not a word to be heard, not a soul to be around: just her and the Light, creation and deliverance, culmination of enlightenment and prosperity. Darkness banished, chased to the cracks within in the walls to hide from the all-knowing truth it dares not want to face.

But it sees—it knows.)

“Things are going to get better, Kaylann,” Yrel says, and lets the Mother’s song wash the face of the Prophet from her thoughts. “In the Light, _we are One._

 _You will see._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the full one-shot of the snippet I posted on Tumblr back in January, based on a personal headcanon that Grommash and Lantresor survived their encounter against Yrel and the Lightbound (and that I can't recall for the life of me how it came to be...but, to be fair, this is how some of my ideas come to fruition). If we are to believe Geya'rah's comments, then one would not be blamed thinking they died shortly after the portal closed behind the surviving Mag'hari fleeing to Azeroth. However, there is no guarantee they died nor lived, whether by dint of luck or mercy, and since _Shadowlands_ is obviously going to explore the Death aspect of WoW's cosmology, it will be a while yet before the Light/Void subplot is explored.
> 
> But another reason for writing this fic is to explore Yrel's character post-WoD. I...made the mistake of looking at her tag and man, people up in ARMS over that development. AO3's character limit won't permit me to put all my thoughts down in this box, so I'll just condense it like so:
> 
> 30 years is a long time. I don't think you're going to be the same person then as you are now. So when looking at the Sermon of the High Exarch book in-game about a couple weeks before I jumped back into the document, I found no such indication Yrel went willingly to the Light Mother or was eventually brainwashed to believe in the visions given to her. Regardless, that's a lot of time for change to occur, and I can't help but wonder why people are frothing at the moment, claiming Yrel is "ruined" when...we don't have the full story as to what led her to create the Lightbound and decide mass, enforced conversions are the key to a united universe.
> 
> But I guess I'm just a simple person, as I don't really have any problems whatsoever seeing a female character become an anti-hero or villain, even if those falls from grace should result in death or a fate worse than that. But there's something about women in WoW that, when they don't do "good" things or are no longer considered "good" after experiencing events that set them on a path of morally questionable actions and behaviors, that really gets people going. They claim such changes to be a "waste", an attempt at "fridging" the woman or throwing her under the bus, that she might be this way because a dreadlord took her place (which is a poor excuse to downplay very justified grief and anger)...but IMO I don't see this kind of microscopic scrutiny anywhere near as much when addressing WoW's male cast (e.g. the "Garrosh did nothing wrong" defense). Yet for me, I merely see these transitions as a natural progressions of character arcs...provided, that is, there is good reason and time to develop her up to that breaking point (hence why I feel AU!Orgrim, while not a man, got shafted hard, even though WoD's only crime was not staying on the drawing table long enough).
> 
> P.S. OTOH it was difficult for me to make Yrel's Orwellian zealotry and obsession (and perhaps guilt, although YMMV) with converting everyone to the Light as simply just that (on top of unhealthy) without it coming off as *squints at notes* "mustache-twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain". With little info of the post-WoD timeskip to glean from, my only basis for her characterization is my headcanon - at least until the time comes when the game goes more in-depth with her and the Lightbound.


End file.
